VALTARI

A full four years after the incredible and criminally overlooked Me' Su' ' Eyrum Vi' Spilum Endalaust Intitle in 2008 Sigur Ros finally returned with Valtari in 2012. After their fifth studio album the band had announced an indefinite hiatus at the end of their tour. The guys in the band had been forming families and although several sessions had formed to record new material at least two attempts at making a new album had been scrapped. The band had been recycling old material and didn't like the way things were going.

So they split - until the release of this album.

Valtari is in many ways what most people would expect of the atmospheric post-rock band, but with a certain sense of absence permeating through the course of the album. It has moments where the band comes through in all their gorgeous glory, but for the most part it is slow, minimalistic and even, in some cases - boring. The band self-described the album as "an avalanche in slow motion," which does suit the overall feel well. These are the kinds of tracks that would make for a good break-up in an otherwise bombastic album but in a collection on their own they feel tedious.

While it is a great achievement to come back from such a hiatus and definitely a good thing to see the band back in form again it is tough to recommend this album to anyone outside of the band's core group of fans. Fans will find something new to love in the perhaps experimental approach to the album and may even consider it a gem in their discography but for the general prog enthusiast it would be an album to come around to much later in your explorations of an otherwise interesting and highly emotionally charged band.

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